80k After Hours

Mar 12 2025 102 ep. 39 mins 647

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Resources on how to do good with your career — and anything else we here at 80,000 Hours feel like releasing.

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Highlights: #212 – Allan Dafoe on why technology is unstoppable & how to shape AI development anyway

Mar 12 2025 29 mins

Technology doesn’t force us to do anything — it merely opens doors. But military and economic competition pushes us through. That’s how Allan Dafoe — director of frontier safety and governance at Google DeepMind — explains one of the deepest patterns in technological history: once a powerful new capability becomes available, societies that adopt it tend to outcompete thos

Off the Clock #7: Getting on the Crazy Train with Chi Nguyen

Jan 13 2025 84 mins

Watch this episode on YouTube! https://youtu.be/IRRwHCK279EMatt, Bella, and Huon sit down with Chi Nguyen to discuss cooperating with aliens, elections of future past, and Bad Billionaires pt. 2.Check out: Matt’s summer appearance on the BBC on funding for the artsChi’s ECL Explainer (get in touch to support!)

Highlights: #211 – Sam Bowman on why housing still isn’t fixed and what would actually work

Jan 06 2025 61 mins

Economist and editor of Works in Progress Sam Bowman isn’t content to just condemn the Not In My Back Yard (NIMBY) mentality behind rich countries' construction stagnation. He wants to actually get a tonne of stuff built, and by that standard the strategy of attacking ‘NIMBYs’ has been an abject failure. They are too politically powerful, and if you try to crush them, sooner

Highlights: #210 – Cameron Meyer Shorb on dismantling the myth that we can’t do anything to help wild animals

Dec 13 2024 29 mins

We explored the cutting edge of wild animal welfare science our full interview with Cameron Meyer Shorb, executive director of Wild Animal Initiative, including highlights like:One concrete example of how we might improve wild animal welfare (00:00:16)How many wild animals are there, and which animals are they? (00:04:24)Why might wild animals be suffering? (00:08:40)The objection

Highlights: #209 – Rose Chan Loui on OpenAI’s gambit to ditch its nonprofit

Dec 11 2024 24 mins

Nonprofit legal expert Rose Chan Loui lays out the legal case and implications of OpenAI's attempt to shed its nonprofit parent. This episode is a selection of highlights from our full interview with Rose, including:How OpenAI carefully chose a complex nonprofit structure (00:00:26)The nonprofit board is out-resourced and in a tough spot (00:04:09)Is control of OpenAI 'priceless' t

Highlights: #208 – Elizabeth Cox on the case that TV shows, movies, and novels can improve the world

Dec 05 2024 29 mins

Elizabeth Cox — founder of the independent production company Should We Studio — makes the case that storytelling can improve the world. This episode is a selection of highlights from our full interview with Elizabeth, including:Keiran’s intro (00:00:00)Empirical evidence of the impact of storytelling (00:00:16)The hits-based approach to storytelling (00:03:35)Debating the me

Highlights: #207 – Sarah Eustis-Guthrie on why she shut down her charity, and why more founders should follow her lead

Dec 02 2024 22 mins

Charity founder Sarah Eustis-Guthrie has a candid conversation about her experience starting and running her maternal health charity, and ultimately making the difficult decision to shut down when the programme wasn’t as impactful as they expected. This episode is a selection of highlights from our full interview with Sarah:Luisa’s intro (00:00:00)What it's like to found a char

Highlights: #206 – Anil Seth on the predictive brain and how to study consciousness

Nov 15 2024 19 mins

Neuroscientist Anil Seth explains how much we can learn about consciousness by studying the brain in these highlights from our full interview — including:Luisa’s intro (00:00:00)How our brain interprets reality (00:00:15)How our brain experiences our organs (00:04:04)What psychedelics teach us about consciousness (00:07:37)The physical footprint of consciousness in the brain (0

Highlights: #205 – Sébastien Moro on the most insane things fish can do

Nov 12 2024 30 mins

Science writer and video blogger Sébastien Moro blows our minds with the latest research on fish consciousness, intelligence, and potential sentience.This is a selection of highlights from episode #205 of The 80,000 Hours Podcast: Sébastien Moro on the most insane things fish can do. These aren't necessarily the most important, or even most entertaining parts of the interview —

Highlights: #204 – Nate Silver on making sense of SBF, and his biggest critiques of effective altruism

Oct 30 2024 19 mins

Election forecaster Nate Silver gives his takes on: how effective altruism could be better, the stark tradeoffs we faced with COVID, whether the 13 Keys to the White House is "junk science," how to tell whose election predictions are better, and if venture capitalists really take risks.This is a selection of highlights from episode #204 of The 80,000 Hours Podcast: Nate Silver on m